San Francisco Is The First Major U.S. City To Go ‘Fur Free’

San Francisco is taking a major step forward on the stand against fur. Announced on Monday, the city will be banning the sale of fur beginning on January 1st, 2019. This will apply to anything made with animal fur, including keychains, gloves, and coats. San Francisco joins Berkley and West Hollywood as well as San Paulo, Brazil, in banning fur sales.

On Monday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved to end the sale of fur in their city. The ban was put forward in December of 2017 by San Francisco District Supervisor Katy Tang. She encouraged the full approval of the entire board stating, “The sale of fur products in San Francisco is inconsistent with the City’s ethos of treating all living beings, humans and animals alike, with kindness.” Looks like the board agreed.

The ban includes the manufacturing, display, and sale of new fur apparel. This means that all stores in the city will be completely fur-free by next year and includes online pruchases for delivery to San Francisco addresses. The ban gives a break to second hand shops, who can continue to sell vintage fur as long as it’s not from an endagered spieces.

Source: Frazer Harrison / Getty

Top designers likeArmani, Hugo Boss, Jimmy Choo, Gucci, Michael Kors, and Furla have all decided to drop fur from their collections. Just last week, Versace announced they will also be going fur free beginning with their 2019 collections. There are so many high quality faux fur options available, it’s glad to see San Francisco stepping in as a leader in the space and interesting to see if they will pioneer in the space of faux-fur innovation and design.

Kitty Block, CEO of Humane Society International said,

“San Francisco has today put itself on the map as a world-leading city in kind, progressive law making. The fur trade is responsible for the suffering and death of more than 100 million animals a year, either kept in tiny cages to be killed by gassing or electrocution, or trapped in the wild waiting hours or days to be shot, all for fashion. Today, San Francisco has said a resounding ‘no’ to that suffering, so this is an exciting and historic vote both for animals and compassionate consumerism, and we hope that the world is watching. Let’s see this ban replicated in cities, states and countries across the world.”

Humane Society International, U.K. division, is one of the leaders in the fur free ban for the U.K. with their #FurFreeBritain campaign. Claire Bass, HSI/U.K.’s Executive Director plans to write to the British government and urge Prime Minister May to follow San Francisco’s ethical lead. We’ll see if they will follow suit!

Beauties, what do you think about fur free cities? Sound off in the comment section.